Now, it happened when Wise Willie turned old, he took a great swelling in his wame, and casting up his kail, collops, and cauld fish, that nothing could stand on his stomach; and a stout stomach he had for crabs heads, and scate broo, or brose in a bridal morning; yet it fail’d him, and he fell sick. None could cure him, nor tell what ail’d him, till a mountebank stage doctor came to Kircaldy that could judge by people’s piss the trouble of their person. Wise Willie hearing of his fame, pissed into the bottle, and sent it away with his daughter. The bottle being uncorked, his daughter spilt it by the way, and to conceal her sloth in so doing, pissed in it herself, and on she goes till she came to the stage-doctor, when she cried out aloud, Sir Doctor, Sir Doctor, here is a bottle of my father’s wash, he has a sair guts, and needs na drite ony, but spues a’ he eats. It’s true I tell you, my dow. The doctor looks at it, then says, it’s not your father’s surely, it’s your mither’s. The deil’s in the man, said she, divna I ken my father frae my mother. Then, said he, he is with child. The deil’s in the man, co’ she, for my mither bare a’ de bairns before; dat’s no true, sir, fegs ye’re a great liar. Hame she comes, and tell’d Willie, her father, that the doctor said he was wi’ bairn. O waes me, co’ Willie, for I hae a muckle wame, an’ I fear its owre true. O plague on you, Janet, for ye’re the father o’t, an’ I am sure to die in the bearing o’t. Witty Eppie was sent for, as she was a houdie, an’ she fand a’ Willie’s wame, to be sure about it. Indeed, co’ Eppie, ye’re the first man ere I saw wi’ bairn before. and how ye’ll bare it, troth I dinna ken, but I would drink salt sea-water and drown it in my guts—for if men get ance the gate o’ bearing weans themselves, they’ll need nae mair wives. So Willie drank sea-water till his guts was like to rive, and out he got to ease himself among the kail; and with the terrible noise of his farting, up starts a maukin behind him, who thought it was shot. Willie seeing her jump o’er the dyke, thought it was a child brought forth, and cried out, come back, my dear, and be christened, and dinna rin to the hills to be a pagan. So Willie grew better every day thereafter, being brought to bed in the kail yard; but his daughter was brought to bed some months after, which was the cause of the doctor’s mistake.
Now Wise Willie had a daughter called Rolling Coughing Jenny, because she spak thick, sax words at three times, half sense and half nonsense, as her own records will bear witness. She being with child, and delivered of a bonnie lassie; and all the wives in the town cried out be-go, laddie, it’s just like its ain father, lang Sandy Tason (or Thomson), we ken by his lang nose; for Sandy had a great muckle red nose, like a labster’s tae, bowed at the point like a hawk’s neb, and Sandy himself said that it was surely his, or some other body’s; but he had used a’ his bir at the getting o’t to try his abilities, being the first time ever he was at sic a business before; and when he had done a’ that man could do at it, he said it was nonsense; and shame fa’ him, but he would rather row his boat round the Bass and back again, or he’d do the like again; for Wise Willie gade wude at the bairn, and said it had mair ill nature than the auldest wife in the town, for it pissed the bed, skirl’d like a wild cat, & kept him frae his night’s rest; the auld hags about the town ca’d him Sandy the bairn’s daddy; and a’ the young gillie-gaukies o’ lasses held out their fingers and cried, Ti hi hi, Sandy, the Kirk will kittle your hips for that: And after a’ the blear-eye’d bell-man came bladering about the buttock meal, summoned him and her before the haly band—a court that was held in the Kirk on Saturday morning—and all the herd laddies round about cried, Ay, ay, Sandy, pay the bull-siller, or we’ll cut the cow’s tail awa’. So poor Sandy suffered sadly in the flesh, besides the penalty and Kirk penance.
But Wise Willie had pity on them, and gade wi’ them to the Kirk-court, what learned fouk call the Session. Jenny was first called upon, and in she goes where a’ the haly band was convened, elders and younger deacons, and dog payers, keeping the door, the cankerdest carles that could be gotten between Dysart and Duddy-side—white heads and bald heads sitting wantin’ bonnets, wi’ their white headed staffs, and hodden grey jockey-coats about them.
Mess John says, come away, Janet, we’re waiting on you here.
Min.—Now, Janet, where was this child gotten? you must tell us this plainly.
Jan.—Adeed sir, it was gotten at the black stanes, at the cheek of the crabb holes.
Mess John stares at her, not knowing the place, but some of the elders did. Then said he, O Janet, but the devil was busy with you at that time!
Jan.—A, by my fegs sir, that’s a great lie ye’re telling now, for the deil wasna there that I saw, nor ony body else, to bid us do ae thing or anither: we lo’ed ither unco weel for a lang time before that, an syne we tell’d ither, and agreed to marry ither, like honest fouk; then might na we learn to do the thing married fouk do, without the deil helping us.
